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i always try to use feelings as an indicator as to when to bail out. Never respond to the anger of others, and never show anger yourself. As fpr the later, if you feel anger coming on, politely excuse yourself. Andie

Neither. I'm saying that logic is a formal process of ordering thought. It says nothing of content. For example--as my medieval, fellow- Salamancas pointed out, asserting that Jose is a unicorn because he fits a unicorn definition says nothing as to the reality of unicorns.... Andie

I think the issue of collateral damage in war can be better understood by looking at a comparable concrete involving individuals, because on the whole the principle is the same. Imagine we have an armed terrorist in a public place who takes three hostages. He holds one of the hostages in front of him as a human shield and places the other two on either side of him. You happen to be carrying a gun yourself. As you draw your weapon, the terrorist sees you. You know he won't hesitate to shoot and kill you, and probably others. However, the only available shot to the terrorist is through the civilian (in this instance you have a high caliber weapon that will allow you to kill the terrorist by shooting through the civilian). What is the right decision? It's clear that if you are to act in a self-interested manner, you need to take the shot. Your priority is self-defense against an armed maniac who will kill you and other innocent people around you. It is a tragedy that the civilian will die in this instance once you shoot through him, but it is the only way to save your own life and those of the other civilians around you. This is the same principle that governs civilian casualties in a war. Civilians in Imperial Japan unfortunately had to die when the U.S. went into neutralize the armed threat. A few things other principles and scenarios in this analogy are worthy of note: 1) The blood of the civilian is squarely and solely on the hands of the terrorist. Even though you pulled the trigger of the weapon that killed him, his death is not your fault. The terrorist forced your hand by coercing you and bears responsibility for the death of this innocent. Because the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary measures for the U.S. to take to neutralize the threat of imperial Japan (a land invasion would have been costly for the lives of American troops, so that decision would have been immoral for government when the bomb remained an effective option), and because the Japanese forced the hand of President Truman by attacking the United States, the blood of those killed in those bombings is on the hands of the Japanese emperor. 2) In our scenario, you probably have time for just one shot before the terrorist is able to fire a shot at you. Because you would be unlikely to hit and would almost certainly die if you missed (and perhaps even if you hit), it would be immoral to shoot to wound the terrorist's exposed leg rather than taking the shot to kill through the civilian. For the same reason, it would be immoral for the United States to have gone out of their way to avoid civilian casualties to the detriment of its ability to win the war. 3) In our scenario, the terrorist has three hostages. Since only one of them must be killed in order to kill the terrorist, it would also be immoral to kill all three regardless. For the same reason, it would be immoral for the United States to have gratuitously bombed Japanese cities after the Emperor offered his surrender. In this instance, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the one civilian right in front of the terrorist, and the other two civilians are the rest of Japan. Civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to die for the U.S. to neutralize a violent, oppressive and irrational government, but once the Japanese surrendered, the U.S. properly did not cause any unnecessary civilian deaths. I hope this analogy is at least a bit helpful or thought provoking when considering foreign policy issues. Thinking about things more in this way helped convince me to support the strong foreign policies of Dr. Peikoff and Dr. Brook instead of the non-interventionism of Ron Paul and other libertarians.

It might not always be in one's self-interest, plus you are basically ignoring how humans differ from animals, namely in their ability to reason. Sharing resources is usually a good thing for one's self-interest, except if the person you are sharing resources actively act to make life more difficult. Life is NOT a zero-sum game, humans are often able to end up with MORE than what they originally start with. Group cooperation often makes that "more" possible through trade. Incidentally, benefit through trade helps all people, but only if trade is completely free. Your usage of competitive is very vague. Competition could mean harming the other person before your resources are taken, but the truth of the matter is resources aren't so limited for *humans* that anytime there is a need for resources destruction happens. The earned is what you get through your own actions, the unearned is what you get through little more than a vague demand of fairness.